Like this:

Coyote was my rock, my saving grace after Sachi died. She has always been a gentle soul — with just enough snark to keep me from getting too maudlin.

Coyote: “Mom, why did Sachi have to leave us so soon?”

Me: “I’m not sure, Coyote, but I suspect it’s because the world just wasn’t big enough to handle all of that love and joy.”

Coyote: “I’m going to miss her.”

Me: “I am, too, baby girl. <We pause and reflect a moment.> “If you were to wish one thing for Sachi, now that she’s moved on, what would it be?”

Coyote: “I’d wish she’d finally catch that fat, stupid squirrel that teased us every morning from the maple tree out front. <We share a chuckle> “Remember that one that fell at her feet out of the tree that time?”

Me: <laughing> “I remember. She almost didn’t know what to do with it.”

Coyote: “Or I’d wish that she was swimming in the river, chasing ducks.”

Me: “She was like sunlight on the water.”

Coyote: “Yeah, she was beautiful, that silly Golden.” <sighs> “Mom, who’s going to make us laugh, now that she’s gone?”

Me: “I guess we’ll have to do that for each other.”

Coyote: <groans> “We’re sunk. You’re not funny.”

Me: <laughing through tears> “Well, it’ll certainly be a lot more humbling for me with just you around.”

Like this:

Sachi, my first Golden and Coyote’s sister, had been ill, off and on, for nearly six months when her last emergency room visit finally produced the diagnosis that had evaded us: cancer. And it was untreatable. My entire world went dark. I went to the veterinary hospital, where she’d been kept for testing, to bring her home to die. So great was my anguish and worry about the possibility that she was suffering that I began frantically calling veterinarians to see if someone could come that night to put her down. Fortunately, no one was able to come, as it gave me the opportunity to invite the people who knew and loved her to the house to say goodbye to her. It was too much for me to process and impossible for me to form the right words for such a pronouncement, so I let my sweet little girl tell my Facebook friends how it was with her.

Sachi: “Mom, why are all the people visiting us sad tonight?”

Me: “Well, Sachi, it’s time for you to go, sweetheart.”

Sachi: “On a walk?”

Me: “Well…”

Sachi: “Or a car ride? I like car rides.”

Me: “It’s kind of a like a car ride. It’s a journey, baby. A new kind of adventure.”

Sachi: “Are you coming, too? I like it when we go places together.”

Me: “Oh, puppy-girl… No, I’m not coming this time.”

Sachi: “You aren’t going to be there? What about Coyote?”

Me: “No, Sachi, you’re going to have to do this one alone. But we’ll be right there to send you off, baby. We won’t leave you until we’re sure you’re safely on your way.”

Like this:

John stops us on our walk to ask after Coyote. We pause, and I fill him in on her slow, drawn-out deterioration.

“They’re a super-breed,” he says, pointing at Coyote with his chin.

Blinking, “I’m sorry…what?”

“Huskies,” he tells me. “I did a little research, and they metabolize food differently, so they can go longer on less.”

And it hits me, full-force in the chest: Huskies are the closest that domestic dogs come to wolves. They’ve retained many of the wolf characteristics throughout their journey from fire pit to fire place. One of those characteristics is a kind of “famine mode” for absorbing nutrients from their food.

I gaze down at my sweet girl, trembling with weakness where she stands, as John continues elaborating on how the husky’s loping run conserves energy; how their fur insulates them from heat and cold… I can only make sense of scattered words because my mind is jangling with one simple, cruel fact:

Like this:

My dogs have all loved to run off-leash. Living in the city, the opportunities to do so are few and far between — and are often stolen at odd hours or in what most people would call “bad weather” so as to avoid being caught and fined. The Golden Retrievers in my life loved to stretch their legs and run for the sheer joy of it. My Coyote, though, could simply never believe she was untethered, having spent her previous life chained to a post. Of the three dogs who have graced my adult life, she has always been the most grateful for that small freedom.

As Coyote has grown weaker in her illness, I’ve started walking her up and down the street without a leash, knowing that she is too sick to run away and believing that I was doing her a kindness by allowing her to make her careful way without the tug of the leash on her collar. From time to time, I’ve caught her suddenly jerk to attention, seeking me out, so I’ve stayed relatively close and within her narrowing range of sight, thinking that was enough.

Tonight’s walk gave me a different perspective. As we rounded the corner in front of my house, Coyote stumbled over the crumbling road surface. She hesitantly struggled over the rough spot and continued unsteadily on for a few steps before stopping and gazing up at me, tremors running through her poor old body. She seemed to want to lean on me, and I thought, I wonder if she feels lost.

“Do you want your leash?” I asked her. She dragged a few, insecure steps toward me. “Would it help you if you had your leash, baby girl?” I closed the tiny gap between us, and she stretched her neck out in that familiar gesture that, for more than a decade, has signaled she wanted me to clip her leash to her collar for a walk. Only, now, there was another layer of meaning: I need to feel attached to you. I feel unsafe without my moorings.

We walked on for the short way her paws will still carry her, and I noticed that when she stumbled or when her hind paw clubbed up because her brain can’t command it consistently anymore, she would glance up, leaning into her end of her leash so she could feel me on my end. Sometimes, if the leash hung too loosely, she would cast about with her head, relaxing only when she felt certain I had hold of her.

And at the end of our walk, once we were safely in the yard, I unclipped the leash, as is our habit, and tried to coax her into following me up the hill to the house. She froze in place, waiting for the reassurance of my touch on her back to guide her across the yard and up the path.

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